art
Super Member
Maybe I'm missing the correlation to the actual problem of outsourcing parts. There's good quality (Eddie Bauer) and worse quality (Sears) in every company. An L3800 is not nearly as high quality of a machine as an L3940. Both may be solid tractors, but there is no denying that the L3940 is more meticulously designed, refined and more money spent in building, correct? Which makes it a higher quality machine.
None of this has anything to do with your original problem of outsourcing though, you still have not addressed how outsourcing (whether it be a tractor or an engine) means worse quality. You don't deny that Kubota outsources, so I don't see what the problem is.
In the end the distributing company has their name on the product, whether they built it or not. So they still stand behind it as a quality product.
I again will ask the question again as you have avoided it, how is outsourcing an engine different than outsourcing the parts to the engine? If I can get a high quality product, at a cheaper price by outsourcing the WHOLE thing instead of just 90% of it, why in the heck would you not do it?? Believe it or not even when a company outsources, they still have control over the product as they are the customer! If the company builds a bad engine, they can switch providers to someone who wants to provide quality material. There is more incentive to keep building high quality products as the distributing company can quickly and easily pull the supplier and switch to a different one MUCH easier (and WAAAAY cheaper) than the distributing company can shut down one of it's own plants, rebuild or retrain the people at their own plant to build a higher quality product.
The quality does not change between the two model Kubotas that you mentioned, they are two different prices and two differently equipped tractors, quality is equal. Out sourcing componets engines, axle's, wiring or whole tractors are all by design and the consistancy of the products and level of quality is up to the buyer at the wholesale level. Not all machines are created equal just because it is a tractor or a car!